Global: 200 jobs go

More than 200 employees of North Jersey Media Group will be laid off following its acquisition by Gannett East Group in July.

The move is part of a restructure to prioritise digital publishing.

Last week, Guardian Media Group announced it would slash a third of its US workforce, stating the “difficult but necessary” decision was necessary if it was to break-even by 2017-18. The UK publisher will have 100 staff in the US.

Newspaper grows – literally

Indian business daily Mint is turning its back on the small Berliner format to become a broadsheet – a move in the opposite direction of most titles.

Veteran media designer Mario Garcia, who spoke at last year’s Future Forum (LINK), worked on the redesign.

Editor-in-Chief Sukumar Ranganathan said readers wanted more quality, authoritative and trusted content than when it launched in 2007.

“Mint has had to transcend the limits of the Berliner format it popularised in India and become a broadsheet, albeit one with the navigational aids, wraps, long-form narratives, and data stories that define what a newspaper should be in the digital era,” he said.

“This isn’t a cosmetic change but a fundamental rethink of a print product.”

Gawker gig for News Corp chief

Digital media veteran Raju Narisetti has been named CEO of Gizmodo Media Group, a rebrand of Gawker Media Group, which was acquired by Univision Communications last month in a court-administered bankruptcy auction.

Mr Narisetti, News Corp’s current senior vice president, strategy, will be responsible for managing all of Gizmodo’s business and editorial operations, which include digital brands Jalopnik, Jezebel, Deadspin, Lifehacker and Kotaku.

Digital news site gawker.com.au was closed and the media group driven to bankruptcy last month in the wake of a high-profile privacy lawsuit involving former wrestler Hulk Hogan.

Gizmodo is now a unit with Univision’s Fusion Media Group. Mr Narisetti will formally join Gizmodo in October. He was previously managing editor of The Wall Street Journal Digital Network and The Washington Post.

Watch Raju Narisetti at speak at Future Forum 2016

Blocker denies ad sales move

AdBlock Plus has denied it is selling ads following a backlash to the company’s announcement last week that it would launch an ad tech platform.

The company said its Acceptable Ads Platform was designed to accelerate ‘whitelisting’ only. This is an approval process in which ads are judged to meet certain specifications and, therefore, are not blocked by AdBlock Plus software.

The company’s planned Acceptable Ads initiative has been known for five years but its pending launch drew angry response. It denied it would sell ads, saying it wanted only to simplify the process for publishers to have non-intrusive ads on their websites.